i can't help (falling in love)
by Immoroita
Summary: "you loved me once, you know." / [au. finnick returns. his memory does not. odesta.]


**Author's Note: **Haven't written any fanfiction in a while, so I thought I'd do that. Sad Odesta, as per usual. Would you expect anything else?

**Rating: **T

**Summary: **"you loved me once, you know." / [au. finnick returns. his memory does not. odesta.]

* * *

Her bed feels too empty without him in it.

It's been three weeks. Three weeks since Finnick woke up. Three weeks since they realized he didn't remember anything from his past. Three weeks since he saw Annie for what he thought was the first time.

A sigh passes her lips as she lies on her side, staring dully at the wall of her bunker. It was Finnick who requested they have separate bunkers – Finnick, who would never have wanted them apart. But this Finnick isn't the one that she knew.

(He's still the one that she fell in love with, though. Annie doubts that that will ever really change.)

Her thoughts trail off into nothing and are about to disappear into the void she wishes she could sink into when they are interrupted by an unexpected presence at her door.

"Ms. Cresta?"

The almost plaintive voice from the figure in the doorway sends a lightning strike through Annie's heart as she sits up quickly to see none other than the Capitol's golden boy standing, silhouetted against the light in the corridor.

"Finnick," she says, trying to keep her voice level, but it comes out shaking and hoarse. A light clearing of the throat. "Finnick."

"I've been having nightmares," Finnick says, almost childishly. "Is that normal?"

"Of course," Annie replies, and a great sob rises up in her throat at hearing him speak.

He enters the room then, closing the door behind him, and crosses over to her bed. Annie pulls her knees up to her chin, heart pounding in her ears, as he sits down and looks at her. This is the closest they've been in almost a month, and quite frankly, she's terrified.

As she looks at him, scans over his face, she sees the bruises and the burns, which are obvious even in the dim light of the corridor seeping in underneath the door. But Annie looks past it – sees past the battered and beaten-down warrior who returned to her on a stretcher to the boy who talked with her deep into the night, to the boy who taught her to trust the waves that rolled into District Four's shores, to the boy who consoled her the nights she woke up with a scream still ringing in her ears.

Annie can still remember the way his heart sounds, and thanks the gods that it is still beating.

Finnick's eyes are beautiful, as usual, but filled with a deep, tender sadness that even she can't decipher. They look back at her, pleading and mournful, and Annie finds she cannot look away.

"Ms. Cresta. Tell me again."

There's an aching sorrow in Annie's chest as she looks at him – nothing but a faint imprint of the man she used to know.

She knows what he's talking about: the story of how they met as children, and of his childhood. Happy stories of sunlit days and warm beaches and sitting by the ocean, watching the sun go down. Not the stories of how she came back with her mind in pieces. Not the stories about how he used to utter her name in trembling tones as though it were a prayer, or of how he used to kiss her with tears rolling down his cheeks, or of how he used to braid her hair as they talked late into the night.

All this goes through her mind, quick as a flash, and Annie realizes just how small, how insignificant the past is in the grand scheme of things, because here is Finnick, robbed of his memory of how beautiful life once was.

And she decides that he deserves to know.

"You loved me once, you know."

Annie anticipates the confusion, the curiosity in his eyes, because he has obviously forgotten what 'love' means – what it really is. She blinks back the tears and pushes on, forcing the sepia-toned memories forward, no matter how much they hurt her.

"I used to fall asleep with my ear to your heart and you used to secretly hold my hand when we went into town. We'd watch TV together on Sunday but never really pay attention. You made me waffles and I made you pancakes at the same time and we smiled at each other over the kitchen counters. You always had to leave, but I always stayed up until four to welcome you home and I never mentioned the lipstick stains on your cheeks because I knew you didn't want me to. And we were happy, Finnick. It was imperfect, but we were happy."

And it's true – they were happy. In the midst of all the sadness, in the midst of all the deception and trickery and exploitation, they were there. Suspended in a moment detached from time.

"I don't know for sure that you weren't lying, Finnick, but you said that you loved me and I believed you. Every morning, when we woke up, you said that you loved me when you thought I was asleep. But I always woke up before you. I just didn't want you to know so that you'd keep saying you loved me. Every morning."

There are suddenly tears on her face, dripping onto the soft wool of the blanket, and Annie brushes them away quickly, not wanting to show her weakness.

"I'd like to think that you weren't lying."

Finnick's eyes are faraway and fixed on something that isn't quite there when she looks back at him.

"I loved you, Ms. Cresta," he says, trying the words out in his mouth, and they are sweet to Annie's ears.

"If I loved you before, do you think I could do it again?"

"I don't even know why you did in the first place," Annie murmurs, and swallows, finding her throat is quite dry.

"Ms. Cresta."

Annie smiles, but it does not reach her eyes. "Remember, Finnick, you can call me Annie."

(What she means is _'Please call me Annie'._)

"No," Finnick muses, picking at a loose thread absentmindedly, and diverts his gaze. "Plutarch told me that you have another name. A better name."

"Really?" she says, because it's the first she's ever heard of such a thing.

"Yes," her boy replies, and makes eye contact. In his eyes there is a sparkle of mirth that really does knock the wind out of Annie's lungs this time, because it's been so long since she saw him display even the faintest sense of happiness.

"He said that I could call you Mrs. Odair. I think I will. I like that much better."


End file.
